Arthur and the Fenris Wolf (8 page)

As soon as they arrived back at Cousin Maggie's house, they piled out of the car and followed her to Knick and Knack's barn. In her arms, Maggie was carrying the pup, who was looking curiously at her new surroundings. She didn't even yap at the goats or the pigs as they passed. They went in the back door of the barn and the stink of manure was almost overwhelming. Shelves and wooden crates full of tools and old junk that Maggie had accumulated over the years were piled in one corner near the door. The pigs stayed outside in their pen, watching lazily.

Maggie handed the pup to Stace and started rooting through the heaps of clutter. She knocked empty paint cans aside and threw blunted garden tools over her shoulders. It was clear that Cousin Maggie was a bit of a hoarder, keeping stuff for years that she had no intention of ever using again.

‘Ah!' she exclaimed joyfully when she finally found what she wanted. She took the pup from Stace, laid her carefully on the ground and unwrapped her from the blanket. Then she turned her back to them and started to get to work properly on the little dog. The pup stayed quiet and whatever Maggie was doing didn't seem to be disturbing her. They heard the sounds of straps being tightened and plastic buckles snapping into place. Then, at last, she turned around to show them the pup.

The back half of the brown dog was fastened into a harness, its lame legs held aloft by a couple of loose belts. The harness itself was mostly shiny aluminium. Two bars ran along either side of the ribs, then curved downwards by the tail. At the end of each bar was a small rubber wheel. The pup looked back at the harness and wheels, then up at Ash.

Ash took a few steps back and then, patting her thighs, said, ‘Come here, girl.'

The dog took a tentative step forward with her front paws and the wheels followed. Then she took another step, and another. Before they knew it, the little pup was running around the barn, barking excitedly. They all laughed to themselves, watching her go.

‘You remember my old dog Snowy who got hit by a car when he was getting on in years?' Cousin Maggie explained through chuckles. ‘He lost the use of his hind legs so I had to get him one of those doggy wheelchairs. I was hoping it would fit her and I was right!'

‘Of course,' said Stace. ‘That was when I was pretty young and Ash was only a baby. I'd totally forgotten about him!'

‘We should give her a name,' Max suggested, slightly out of breath from laughing.

‘Let Ash name her,' said Maggie. ‘She found her.'

All eyes were on Ash. She patted her legs again and the pup came rushing over to her. Ash crouched to rub her back and thought about the perfect name. She wanted something that would sum up the dog and how they'd found her. Something with a bit of mystery.

‘I have it!' she said. ‘How about “Ice”?'

The rest of them considered it, slowly nodding their heads.

‘I like it,' said Arthur. ‘Ice.'

Ice looked up at Arthur, as if she knew it was her name, her tail wagging so much that it whacked against the aluminium bars.

Cousin Maggie stayed true to her word and wouldn't allow Arthur or Ash to leave the house for the next twenty-four hours. She had Ash and Max swap beds to keep the two ill friends confined together. (Stace wasn't too thrilled about having to share a room with her younger brother and even suggested that he should sleep on the living-room couch – a proposal Maggie had laughed down.) She fed them steaming bowls of chicken soup, with buttery crusty rolls on the side, followed by two juicy mandarin oranges with a scoop of real vanilla ice-cream each. She believed that the vitamin C in the oranges would help stave off the flu germs, while the ice-cream was just a well-earned treat.

From the moment they'd been rescued to the moment they got back to Maggie's, Arthur had felt fine. He guessed the adrenaline must have kept away any sick feeling because now, lying in a bed across from Ash, he felt terrible. And, clearly, so did she. Even though they were both bundled up in two blankets and a duvet each, with hot-water bottles warming their toes, the pair of them shivered involuntarily every so often. Arthur had a sore throat and Ash's voice had grown even hoarser in the past couple of hours. Aunt Maggie had carried Ice upstairs so they could all keep each other occupied. Ash would call Ice to her and the little dog would scamper around the room and occasionally even attempt to leap up onto Ash's bed. She never made it but at least her cracks at it kept Arthur and Ash giggling.

‘Laughter is the best medicine!' Cousin Maggie declared when she was done administering some sweet cough syrup to them. ‘And sleep is the second best. Which you two should be doing now.' With that, she picked up Ice, switched off the light and shut the door behind her. Before Arthur knew it, he had fallen into a heavy sleep and didn't dream once during the night.

The following day, he woke to find Ash kneeling on the floor and playing with Ice.

‘How are you feeling?' he asked.

‘Much better,' she answered, her voice still croaky. ‘You?'

‘Great, actually.' And it wasn't a lie either. There were still faint echoes of the pain in his legs, and his throat was still a little raw, but overall he felt really rested.

‘See?' Cousin Maggie said when she saw how much they'd improved. ‘I told you my chicken soup could work miracles!'

Although she still didn't want them leaving the warmth of the house in case their colds flared up again, there was still plenty to do and the day went by quickly. Stace and Max stayed indoors with them out of sympathy and they spent the day playing board games or being chased about by an excitable Ice. As promised, Cousin Maggie had put signs up around the town with Ice's picture, but so far no one had claimed her.

When Arthur woke up the following day, his heart sank. It was Friday, he realised, which meant that it was time to go home. Cousin Maggie made them breakfast and they all ate it noisily, clearly wanting to forget the fact that their brief holiday was coming to an end. Arthur really had enjoyed his time at Maggie's, despite nearly drowning and the ensuing stint in bed. As he chewed on some crunchy bacon, he looked across the table at Ash, who was feeding the end of a sausage to Ice. He wondered how she'd react if she had to leave the pup behind.

Mr and Mrs Barry arrived shortly after eleven in their large people-carrier. They gave their children tight hugs, particularly Ash. Mrs Barry surprised Arthur by embracing him too.

‘What you two did was so reckless,' Mrs Barry said crossly, then in a gentler tone, ‘but we're glad you're safe.'

They all went inside for a cup of tea before the return journey. Before Maggie could offer them all third helpings of her rhubarb crumble, Mr Barry announced, ‘It's time we hit the road. Put your bags in the boot and we'll be on our way.'

‘Dad?' Max piped up.

‘Yeah?'

‘Can we bring Ice with us?'

‘What's Ice?' As if on cue, the little dog hobbled into view in front of Mr Barry.

‘Oh no!' he said. ‘No dogs.'

‘Why not?' Stace demanded.

‘For starters, you wouldn't walk it or clean up after it. And you know who'll end up doing it all? Muggins here!'

‘Please, Dad!' begged Ash. ‘She won't need much walking and I promise I'll feed her and brush her and do anything else that needs doing.'

‘No and that's final. Get your bags.'

A few minutes later they were all squashed into the car, watching Cousin Maggie and Ice get smaller as they pulled away. There were tears in Ash's eyes as she looked back at them. Suddenly, Ice started running after the vehicle, yapping loudly. Mrs Barry, who had been watching in the rear-view mirror, turned to get a proper look at the dog. At this rate she would never catch up with them, but it was heart-breaking watching her try.

She laid a hand on her husband's arm as he steered towards the laneway.

‘Francis,' she said imploringly.

He looked at her, catching the sympathy in her eyes.

‘They won't look after her, Ann,' he said as reasonably as he could manage, his voice softening. ‘You know that.'

By now, Arthur, Stace, Ash and Max were looking at the adults, silently praying for the answer they wanted to hear.

‘If they don't,' Mrs Barry said, turning around to address her children face on, ‘then we bring Ice back to Cousin Maggie. Sound fair?'

‘That definitely sounds fair!' proclaimed Stace.

‘You won't have to do a thing, Dad!' promised Ash.

‘I'll walk her and bring her to the shops and play football with her and build her a kennel and wash her and do everything!' added Max finally.

Mr Barry slowly took his foot off the accelerator and the car ground to a halt.

‘All right then,' he agreed reluctantly.

Ash whipped her seatbelt off, swung open the car door and ran to meet the puppy. She swept her up and the dog licked her face joyously.

‘We can keep her!' Ash shouted back to Cousin Maggie, who was still standing by her house but now with a big smile gleaming across her face. ‘We can keep Ice!'

In a time before history was written down, in Asgard, the realm of the gods, it is said that the great wolf Hati pursues the moon across the shifting night sky. If this is so, then the chase goes on now, as the sun has fallen behind the horizon for the day and the moon has taken its place high over the land.

Loki, the Father of Lies, stands on a hilltop staring up at the great celestial body. In Asgard, the moon shines larger and brighter and fuller than in any of the other worlds and he can see the pits and cracks and mountains on its face clearly. And, moments later, he watches something fall from the moon to Asgard. It soars across the sky – a falling rock with a tail of flame trailing behind it. He looks on as it plummets to the ground and feels the impact shudder through his legs, even from this distance.

The Trickster God smiles and spreads out his arms. The black cloak he is wearing falls in thick folds, then, with a flash of vivid emerald light, transforms into wings. He looks at his arms, now covered in expansive green feathers, and laughs. He flaps the colossal wings once, twice and with that is in the sky, flying over the mystical land.

Below him forests spread out as far as the eye can see. There are trees as tiny and fragile as a single hair on the back of his hand and trees as tall and monstrous and sturdy as Odin All-Father's great dining hall. There are trees of wood so dark and dense that the inhabitants of Asgard are always in danger of wandering too close and being absorbed into their endless blackness, and there are trees of timber so light that they are invisible to the eye and you would not be aware of them until you bumped into them. There are trees that grow so fast that you can hear them groaning, trees that walk and move and run, and trees that need centuries to take root. There are trees that aren't even made of wood: they are formed from iron and steel, marble and stone, flesh and bone. There are some trees that are even created from dreams and nightmares or hopes and fears – psychedelic, shifting things that most dread to look upon. This, then, is Asgard.

Twelve gods and twelve goddesses call the realm their home. At the head of their society is their ruler, Odin All-Father. Although he has but one eye, he can see all. Or almost all, Loki snickers to himself, batting his gigantic wings. He, the god of mischief, is a joke to the other gods, as demonstrated the previous night. In Odin's hall they had all laughed as a giantess had sewn Loki's mouth closed and he'd sworn it would be the last time they shamed him. As the sun rose on a new day, Loki had put his plan for revenge into action. He had created the Jormungand, the serpent that would destroy the world. Since then, the Jormungand had travelled to Midgard, the realm of Man, and the gods, roused into action, still have not found Loki. And now he will create his second child, the next stage in his brilliant scheme.

There is a clearing where the rock fell to earth, the trees burned away by the force of the collision and the earth scorched black all around. He extends his wings as wide as possible and soars gracefully into the centre of the clearing. As his feet alight on the ground once more, there is a flash of green light and his wings transform back into a pair of strong arms, the black cloak hanging from them.

Loki looks up at the moon. It is hanging directly above him, the white light falling into the clearing and illuminating his way. He walks towards the centre and can feel the heat scorching through his boar-leather soles. There is a small mound in the middle of the clearing, little more than an anthill. The point of impact. And there, on the top of the mound, is the thing that fell.

At first glance, it is just a white pebble. But Loki knows it is so much more. Even from here, standing a few feet away, he can feel great heat radiating from it. It is smoothly curved and white hot from breaking through the atmosphere. The Father of Lies yearns to touch it, to feel its power. He reaches forward and picks it up, gripping it tightly.

He smells the acrid stench of the flesh of his palm burning and singeing as he holds it. He keeps his hand like that for as long as he can, relishing the pain and savouring the power. Then he loosens his grip slightly between his index finger and thumb. He blows into the hollow he has created. Icy air escapes from his lungs and envelopes the moonstone. It cracks and hisses and whistles sharply as it cools. The burning sensation is gone now, but the pain remains.

He opens his hand. His palm is red raw; the skin has burned off it completely, exposing strips of blood and muscle. It is not pretty to look upon and the pain is inching further up his arm but he doesn't mind. His attention is focused on the small pebble.

Now that it has cooled down, it no longer appears white but is transparent, like a piece of glass. He takes it in his other hand – with a flash of green light, his burned hand repairs itself – and examines it more closely. The pebble isn't fully clear: pale swirls of green and pink dance in the glass and motes of moon-dust glitter throughout. It is a perfect circle, with a smooth convex curve on each side, and the moon itself is magnified behind it as Loki holds it up to the light.

‘A piece of the moon,' he says to no one but himself. ‘Did the Moon-wolf Hati bite you off?' Hmm. Hati's Bite. A suitable name.

He can't take his eyes off it. Such a small and pretty trinket and yet so powerful, so dangerous. The destruction it has caused in this clearing will be a drop in the ocean compared to what he will do with it. It is just what he needs.

A noise unexpectedly breaks through his train of thought. It is a whining sound, coming from the edge of the clearing, shrill and piercing like the cry of an animal in pain. Loki turns towards the noise and squints at the source through the darkness.

With the beast's black coat, Loki has trouble spotting it at first, but then he notices a shape. ‘Oh,' he says with glee when he sees what it is. ‘Fortune favours me tonight.'

It is a wolf, lying on its side under a half-fallen tree. Its head rolls around and it is whining, clearly hurt. Loki walks towards it to get a closer look. The fur on one side of its body has been burned away, presumably scorched by the impact of Hati's Bite. Bare skin and muscle are exposed underneath and he can see the animal's ribs shuddering up and down with each laboured breath.

Loki kneels by the wolf and slides his arms underneath it. At first the beast growls at him but then whimpers when Loki lifts it off the ground. Its head lolls to one side; it is too weak to lift it.

‘Fortune favours you, too,' Loki tells the wolf as he carries it back into the centre of the clearing. ‘I will make you better. Better and stronger and more powerful than you have ever been. You will walk on two feet and you will make me an army.' He crouches down, laying the beast on top of the small mound. Its back twists awkwardly over the bump. ‘I will give you a piece of my power. For you are my second child, my Fenris Wolf.'

With that, he points Hati's Bite at the moon. Rays of moonlight fall through the glass, contracting into a single beam of white. Loki murmurs words constructed from the ancient and primordial language of runes and tilts the piece of moonstone, focusing the light beam over the wolf's face and into one fearful eye.

There is a sudden and blinding flash of light.

‘Argh!'

Arthur sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat. He'd finally had it! The dream he'd been expecting and dreading ever since his pendant had glowed a few days ago – he'd finally had it. He felt a dull, throbbing pain in his right hand. He looked down at it, holding it palm-up. It looked fine, but the memory of soreness was still there. He recalled with great discomfort that Loki had burned his own right hand in the dream. Whatever was wrong with Arthur's hand, the pain was gradually fading, so he put it out of his mind.

A pale white light flowed in through the curtains of his bedroom. Some of the glass had been smashed while Arthur had been away. He assumed correctly that it was a result of the hammer breaking through, while Joe thought it had been some neighbours' kids and a misplaced football. Either way, the hole was now patched with a sheet of cardboard; Joe had promised to get it fixed on Monday. Arthur glanced at the phone on his bedside locker. It was still dead from the frozen lake. He'd tried the trick of holding it under a hair-dryer but to no avail. He got up, walked barefoot across a chilly floor to his desk and switched on his laptop. By the time it had finally booted up, it was 7.21. Far too early to be up on a Saturday morning. However, he knew that there was no chance of getting back to sleep again after that dream.

When they'd arrived home the day before, Joe had still been at work so Arthur had spent most of the evening in the Barry house, playing with Ice. Joe came knocking around seven and, after simultaneously commending Arthur for rescuing Ash and reprimanding him for putting his own life at risk, he took him to a local pizzeria for dinner.

Arthur sat down at his desk, his cold toes curling under the chair, and logged on to Skype. The instant-messenger service popped up on the screen, telling him that Ash was online. That didn't mean much as Ash usually left her laptop on overnight anyway, downloading the latest updates for all her favourite pieces of software. And Ash had a lot of favourite pieces of software.

However, it was worth a try, so he double-clicked on her name. The tone of a phone played through the speakers. It rang six or seven times and Arthur was just about to hang up when–

‘Morning,' Ash croaked and a dark and grainy image of her face filled the screen. ‘It's very early, Arthur. What's up?'

‘Sorry,' he said, tilting his own webcam so she could see him better. ‘I know it's early but can I call over? I have something to tell you.'

‘What is it?' She rubbed her eyes, still not awake enough to look concerned.

‘I had one of the dreams.'

Those words managed to shake her awake and she looked at him on the screen with wide, worried eyes.

‘You'd better come over, then.'

Ash was still in her peach-coloured pyjamas and dressing gown when Arthur arrived at her door a few minutes later. Ice was at her feet, wagging her tail merrily at him.

‘Have you eaten yet?' she asked, leading him into the kitchen. The house was quiet; all the other Barrys were sensible enough to still be in their cosy beds. Even from downstairs, he could hear Granny Barry's ragged snores from the spare room.

‘No, I wanted to tell you right away.'

She opened a cabinet over the sink and pulled out a box of cereal. ‘Fancy some?' He nodded and she started collecting bowls, spoons and milk.

‘Listen, Ash …' he started as she worked.

‘No,' she said. ‘Wait till we're finished eating.'

‘Why?'

‘Because the longer I put off hearing about the dream, the longer I can imagine he's not back.' She sat down and poured herself a heaped bowl of Cornflakes, splashing milk liberally over them. Arthur watched in silence as she started to eat, then sat down across from her and copied her.

For the next few minutes, they didn't speak. The only sound in the kitchen was the crunching of cereal and Ice's paws and wheels rolling on the tiled floor. The tension didn't break until Ash slurped the last of the milk from her bowl and put it aside.

‘OK,' she said. ‘Tell me.'

He told her. He told her about Loki's flight through Asgard, about the moonstone and the clearing, and lastly he told her about the Fenris Wolf. As he recounted the story, he paced the room, looking anywhere but at Ash. He studied the floor, the ceiling, the plates in the open dishwasher.

And most of all, he studied Ice. She sat in front of him, looking at him with her big black eyes and with her ears cocked as if listening to his tale. The more he watched her, the more he was filled with a sense of unease about the pup. The way she was looking at him seemed to be intense, intelligent, almost human.

When he was done, all Ash could manage was, ‘Wow.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘But that's not the worst part of it.'